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Many times there is sales potential sitting within your existing customer database; you just have not looked or asked others.  Because databases are so large and inaccessible to most, they are ignored.  Get your programmer to design a report that dumps history each  year by every customer in your database, and can be sorted a variety of ways.

Dump your customer database and try these actions to boost sales:

1. Know and respect your top customers:  Dump sales by customer and sort high to low on sales dollars.  Who has been the largest customer dollar-wise?  For example, dump the customer annual sales for the last ten years and sort the listing by the largest to the smallest.  Be aware of your top customers and ensure they are well covered and satisfied with their service.
2. Which customers have come and gone?  Dump sales by customer and sort by most recent sales (chronological order of incoming orders).  What customers yielded sales last year, but none so far this current year?  Go after these first.  They did not come back for a reason, or no one has called them to give them a reason to come back.
3. Sell effectively by defining opportunities regionally:  Dump sales by customer and sort by city or zip code (physical address).  Sort your target listing by region or area to concentrate sales activity to maximize your efficiency when calling on these potential customers.
4. Sell to branches and use existing sales to increase sales:  Dump sales by customer and by those related branches.  Which branches are buying, but more importantly, which branches are not buying?  If you do not have a corporate discount established for this company, devise one, make it simple and start making calls on those non-participating branches to let them know of the savings they can enjoy since their sister branches are already buying from your firm.
5. Award performance:  Measure history to date sales with customers and award long-term performance and loyalty.  For example, once a customer passes $1.0M mark, give him a 2% discount on all purchases going forward.  Tell him this discount will not go away because he has been loyal through the years.  If you want that historical marker to be $100,000, or the total number of widgets that he has bought, or some number of years of consistent loyalty, you choose the historical marker.
6. Hidden relationships:  Ask the question from all of your personnel or ask it on a bulletin board for all to see in your company,  “Does anyone know any person at ABC Company?” Ask, “Are there any potential customers on the current sales list that have a tie or relationship with any of our hundreds of vendors?” Ask your bank if they have a relationship with this potential customer?  Ask your insurance broker the same question.

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